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[Sean Mirrsen]

I've recently been reading the GURPS rulebooks, and there are some interesting things there for creating new technology that can apply here.

Specifically, for the randomness of genemods - when a genemod is designed, the GM could make a roll in secret, that determines how well the genemod works. Failing, by various degrees, would result in minor or major flaws, that would be selected from a random table. Testing the genemod after creation can make these flaws surface - this takes time, and any found flaws can be repaired, but again - according to how the dice land for testing, some flaws may be missed. Testing can be redone, but since it takes time it won't be an easily repeatable thing - so you never know if you've actually gotten all the problems out, and if there were any in the first place.

The problems can be very varied, but broadly split into minor and major flaws. Minor flaws either cause small annoyances or have unlikely triggers, or both. Something like sneezing violently every time you sit down. Major flaws cause serious damage in some form, or have very common triggers - or again, both. Like an allergy causing regular clean water to dissolve your skin and muscle on contact.

Any flaws not found in testing will eventually be found by whoever gets the genemods, of course.

[syvarris]

@Harry

Yes, I understand that random chance with genemods is realistic, and strange with guns, but my question stands: What does it improve?

Why would having random side effects with any genemod improve the game?  It would just mean that you can request an mod you want, and spin the roulette wheel.  If you're lucky, you get anything you desire, and if you're not lucky, you don't get anything except a mutilated body.  That's not fun, it's gambling.  We already have The Doctor and Nyartifacts for gambling.  It also isn't Tinker.

It also would be basically meaningless on Heph if you can try to redesign it, and roll again for side effects.  After all, we have plenty of sods to test on, so we can just retry until we get a genemod without side effects.

Your argument that genemodding can do anything, and therefore needs rolls to balance it, is also wrong.  If one gene mod is OP, then just make it cost more.  We have a council specifically there to balance weapon designs.  Why wouldn't they balance genemods?  Also, genemodding isn't going to be more OP than engineering, because we have all sorts of fun stuff like robot bodies, and synthflesh, which is simply better than humanflesh in every way, even if it's genemodded humanflesh.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Also, genemodding isn't going to be more OP than engineering, because we have all sorts of fun stuff like robot bodies, and synthflesh, which is simply better than humanflesh in every way, even if it's genemodded humanflesh.

Faith was at one point a walking infinite medkit. Your argument is invalid.

[Nikitian]

And then she lost it, and got a synth-body upgrade. And never cared about the medi-body since then. Arguement still stands.
(Now, Xan is another thing entirely, but then again he's half secret-stuff-applied, as opposed to general genemodding).

As for Christmas ban shifting, I would rather appreciate if other tinker bans were shifted as well. Sure, not the 'spess magick' one, and probably not synthflesh tinkering either, but it would be quite nice if we would finally be able to tinker with crystalline projector and other cool 'black box' things. Sure, Heph is supposed to deal with them, but they are busy with other things most of the time, so why not let us on the Sword do that (if only in a limited non-realspace variant)?

[Parisbre56]

Have the AM and the Doc or the sheep and the mouth-demon sing a duet or a shitty poem with ominous foreshadowing and holiday related themes, something about the spirit of spacemas.

[Harry Baldman]

@Harry

Yes, I understand that random chance with genemods is realistic, and strange with guns, but my question stands: What does it improve?

Why would having random side effects with any genemod improve the game?  It would just mean that you can request an mod you want, and spin the roulette wheel.  If you're lucky, you get anything you desire, and if you're not lucky, you don't get anything except a mutilated body.  That's not fun, it's gambling.  We already have The Doctor and Nyartifacts for gambling.  It also isn't Tinker.

It also would be basically meaningless on Heph if you can try to redesign it, and roll again for side effects.  After all, we have plenty of sods to test on, so we can just retry until we get a genemod without side effects.

Your argument that genemodding can do anything, and therefore needs rolls to balance it, is also wrong.  If one gene mod is OP, then just make it cost more.  We have a council specifically there to balance weapon designs.  Why wouldn't they balance genemods?  Also, genemodding isn't going to be more OP than engineering, because we have all sorts of fun stuff like robot bodies, and synthflesh, which is simply better than humanflesh in every way, even if it's genemodded humanflesh.

As mentioned, rolling provides an actual need for testing outside of VR, if the rolls are kept secret. Some potential side effects could be merely interesting and/or unexpectedly positive as well, not merely hindering.

Mostly, though, it makes genemodding and other biotech fun stuff (like bioweapons or medical solution design, for instance) more interesting. If one really needs a do-anything biotech solution, just ask the Doctor to modify you or make you something in exchange for tokens (or body parts) - this he can and will do, it seems, and if you pay him there appears to be a far lesser risk of getting mutilated. From a purely mechanical standpoint, the lack of a biotech tinkering ban wouldn't really change anything in terms of getting cool stuff. And from a roleplaying standpoint, genetic modification becomes a richer process if there's ways for it to go interestingly, with an appropriate reduction in price (universal, hopefully, since ostensibly most genemodding uses the same methods involving large needles in important places and whatnot) if they're sufficiently fascinating or untested to the point where even new characters could potentially afford one to keep them alive and marginally useful (hopefully).

And if high-technobabble-level rolls were applied to other highly esoteric technologies as well, it makes less elementary designs more unpredictable in the field and provides more need for iteration and refinement, sort of like in that GURPS example from Sean. It's just no fun if everything always goes as planned, is it?

Note also that genemodding would probably not be possible to fully test on sods alone, given that their general makeup is more than slightly different from the average schlub, most notably in their peak physical condition, presumable genetic homogeneity, mental differences and possibly other things.

[PyroDesu]

I'm with Syv in that nothing through Tinker should be randomized, for good or bad - biotech, engineering, nothing. It's already proven to effectively be a very much near-perfect simulator of reality, so there's no reason that players shouldn't be able to see effects like they would occur in reality. It also just means people will reroll and reroll and reroll until they get what they want, which is irritating to both player and GM. And, if you hide the rolls, that means that players are able to, without knowing, inflict horrific, possibly permanently fatal damage upon themselves and others by trying to be creative. It's a terrible idea from an in-game standpoint, it's a horrible idea from a mechanics standpoint. As Syv said - if people want to use dice to possibly improve themselves, they go to the Doctor.

I'm quite the proponent of the idea that if a GM doesn't know, then the clear answer is to roll for it to attain certainty.

That's an unimaginably appalling idea, because it needlessly cripples those who take the time to explain how something works. Like that, if someone says to PW, for example, I want a fusion bomb that doesn't use a fission ignition device, it's either a flat-out no or it's fine, because that's easy for the GM to understand. But if you say you want a fusion bomb without a fission ignition device, here's how it could work in reality, that gives you a roll because the GM (no offense, PW) doesn't know the underlying principles behind what you said and has to rely on how you said it would work. It improves nothing about the game and punishes those who would deign to design something on real-world principles.

[piecewise]

I released a first version of the potion gen using a bit of time I had this evening.

I might be able to give everyone a potion...thats a thing I could do...

[Unholy_Pariah]

Can synthbodies drink potions?

[piecewise]

Can synthbodies drink potions?

sure why not

[PyroDesu]

Can synthbodies drink potions?

sure why not

Not exactly hard to explain - you have to put more nutrient solution (and possibly other brain-altering chemicals, if the user feels like it) in the life support unit anyways.

The real question is - how would they affect the synthfleshed/robobodied, since I bet most of them have physical effects?

[NAV]

And, if you hide the rolls, that means that players are able to, without knowing, inflict horrific, possibly permanently fatal damage upon themselves and others by trying to be creative.

In what way could this possibly be a bad thing for the game?

[Empiricist]

Can synthbodies drink potions?

sure why not

Not exactly hard to explain - you have to put more nutrient solution (and possibly other brain-altering chemicals, if the user feels like it) in the life support unit anyways.

The real question is - how would they affect the synthfleshed/robobodied, since I bet most of them have physical effects?

The person's body might not matter too much judging by what I've seen it generate so far. Hellish skelewheel transformations, infant soul infusions and hazy bear hallucinations don't seem like they'd be too incompatible with synthetic materials.

[PyroDesu]

And, if you hide the rolls, that means that players are able to, without knowing, inflict horrific, possibly permanently fatal damage upon themselves and others by trying to be creative.

In what way could this possibly be a bad thing for the game?

Anytime else, it's at least patently obvious (or able to be clearly made so - though not always in time) that you're probably going to horrifically mutilate yourself. A silent killer (or mutilator, whatever) through doing something that's actually a good idea, is not.

[NAV]

Yes, cause messing with your genes and biochemistry is certainly not a risky thing at all.